Previews

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence

Konami makes another go-round at one of its best-ever games, and the results should be nothing short of extraordinary.

Spiffy:

Tons of additions and refinements to a game already deemed a classic.

Iffy:

There's just no knowing if Kojima Productions can master online games till we get our hands on it.

While there wasn't a playable version at Konami's Summer BBQ event, we did get a new trailer and plenty of printed information on the remake of last year's Metal Gear Solid 3, called MGS3: Subsistence that will arrive in the U.S. some time early next year. Of course, the focus of the presentation was on the game's all-new online component.

The video showed an entire unit of players moving around hidden in the Metal Gear series' infamous cardboard boxes, which elicited a lot of laughs from the attendees of the conference. It also showed characters such as Snake leading teams, with the low-ranked, generic player characters saluting him. It was revealed that top players will earn the rights to play as characters like Snake or Revolver Ocelot online, which explains the appearance of these story-driven characters in the online mode. Players will be able to choose from three different forces: GRU, KGB, or Ocelot Unit when playing online.

The online version of the game will have a mixture of environments adapted from the single-player edition of the game and all-new environments crafted just for battle on the network. The attention to detail in the new levels, judging from the trailer, is of course, up to Metal Gear Solid 3's high level of standards. One of the more intriguing moments in the trailer suggested the fact that at a high camouflage level, you may literally be unable to see your enemy sneaking through the grass (the grass itself moved, but no characters were actually visible until the player put on his infra-red goggles). This gives you a taste of what it's like to be Snake's adversaries in the MGS3 single-player game.

The close quarters combat (CQC) gameplay system from MGS3 will also be available for playing online in addition to the expected and typical massive arsenal of projectile weaponry (in the form of guns, rocket launchers, and the like). The game will have five modes of online play according to the Konami rep present at the Summer BBQ; information distributed in print form has revealed that several will be extremely typical: Capture Mission, which is capture the flag, plus deathmatch and team deathmatch. The more creative Sneaking Mission where one player becomes Snake and has to retrieve an item guarded by the rest of the players. This is rounded out by Rescue Mission, which has one side defending an item while the other tries to destroy it. Mimicking Counter-Strike, no respawning will be allowed in Rescue Mission mode.